


Dear Happy.

by natigail



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Dear Happy, Gen, Thomas represents happiness like in the song with dodie, angsty, angsty but with a happy ending, implied struggles with depression, mentions of self-doubt, striving for happiness, this is based on Dodie and Hazel's happiness videos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 02:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9948341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natigail/pseuds/natigail
Summary: A gentle reminder that happiness isn’t something to capture but simply to enjoy. Told by the perspectives of two girls and their interactions with Happy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on the happiness videos posted on ChewingSand and doodleoddle in November 2016. I suggest you watch those first if you haven't already. They're wonderfully done and inspired me to write this.

 

[Hazel's video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0VMmlP8rUE)

[Dodie's video feat. Thomas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQVXm-imzoA)

 

**Dear Happy.**

Two girls become roommates. They live in London. They both do the same thing for work. Hazel is older, slightly taller, Irish, blonde and a filmmaker. Dodie is younger, slightly shorter, English, brunette and a singer. They are friends. They both search for their  **Happy**. This is their story. 

~*~

“I just want to be happy,” Hazel said. 

Happy.

Her lip quivered before she broke out into tears. It wasn’t fair. She’s had chased after her happiness for years. It would get within her reach only to disappear before she could actually clasp her hands around it and catch it. 

Frustration had risen in her chest and she had shouted and lashed out. She spent so many hours chasing after that little glint of Happy. She had gotten so close, so many times but never had she been able to hold onto it. 

It would never stay and it broke her heart. 

All the bad, horrible feelings – they lingered. The made themselves at home in her room. She captured those. She wanted to know what it felt like to bottle up feelings, like she’d dreamt of doing to Happy for so long. She captured all the feelings she could, labelled them even. 

However, it was a dangerous practice. She’d see them out of the corner of her eye, almost beaconing her to walk over. She’s pop off the lid and feel tempted to take a sip, which always seemed to turn into a chug. 

Those feelings, horrible as the may be, were familiar to her. She’d lived with them so long that she almost felt a comfort in the familiarity. 

She knew she must have felt Happy sometimes. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be so obsessed with chasing after it. But now it seemed more like a dream or an illusion she’d made up. She could have sworn it had been there sometimes but it often went away too quickly and it made her doubt herself if it was ever there in the first place. Like picking out shapes in the clouds, Happy seemed to disappear if you closed your eyes for a moment too long.

So she clung to the familiar, no matter how upset those feelings made her. Even if they forced her to stay in bed all day and simple tasks such as showering felt too complex and difficult. She hated it. 

She cried a lot and cursed Happy. How could such a wonderful thing leave her broken and sopping in her bed?

~*~

Dodie thought she was nearly there. She thought she had found a way to stay in that place where Happy would be by her side forever. But alas, she was mistaken. 

Dear Happy, would you mind staying?

She’s asked that to Happy whenever it came near, shouting feverously whenever it came in sight. Happy never got close enough for her to ask properly. Happy never stayed.

She missed feeling Happy. It was like an ache in her chest or a craving she couldn’t satisfy. She sought it out as much as she could, wanting desperately to hold onto it to no avail. 

As she grew older, she became wary of Happy whenever it came near. 

It would only leave her again. She knew it in her bones. Her experiences with Happy had left scars in her. She could not trust it to stay. When she needed it the most, Happy seemed nowhere to be found. 

She wondered what the point of everything was if everything with Happy was just a fleeting moment. She didn’t want that. Not even a little bit. She wanted stability. She wanted to be loved and surrounded by what made her feel good all the time. 

It hurt too much when Happy went away, so she couldn’t enjoy it whenever it came near. She pushed it away. It wasn’t healthy for her to be near it. 

She would get too attached and being parted would rip up the old wounds, tear open the scar tissue maliciously and she didn’t want to go through the healing process again. 

No, it was better not to go near Happy. Despite its name, it would harm her.

Fleeting time wasn’t something she would work with. Happy needed to stay by her side, permanently. She didn’t want Happy until it would be there always and they’d be together at last. 

Until this whimsical Happy would stay, she didn’t dare to let it fill her up with all the wonderful emotions only to rip them away moments later.   

As she kept rejecting and doubting Happy, bad feelings had easier access to her and took up all the emotional capacity that Happy wasn’t allowed to fill. 

She cried a lot and cursed Happy. How could such a wonderful thing stop by only to leave her and knowingly tear her apart all over again?

~*~

“I’m thinking of making an animated short movie,” Hazel said one day where they were both lounging in the living room, tired and beaten down after a long day. 

“Huh, that sounds cool,” Dodie said and peeked up. “You’ve never made anything animated before. Has something specific inspired you?”

They always shared creative ideas and loved to debate and discuss the pros and cons of different techniques. Since they’d been living together, they had learnt a lot from each other already. 

“I’ve been working on this poem about happiness. How I’m struggling to find my Happy,” Hazel said, her voice falling quieter almost as if it was a bit of a secret or something forbidden. She knew she didn’t have to worry about Dodie’s reaction but it still felt odd sharing it with the poem in its incomplete state. 

“I like that,” Dodie said and smiled at her friend. “I have fragments of song lyrics and a little melody about the same topic. I wanted to write a song to Happy, tell it how it makes me feel and why I shy away from it.”

Like Hazel, Dodie’s voice became quieter. 

Neither of the girls was really sure why the topic of happiness lowered such serious atmosphere on the otherwise high spirits that had filled their home moments ago. 

“Happiness is a fickle thing, isn’t it?” Hazel said. 

“Sure is,” Dodie agreed. 

They drifted on to other topics. None of them had perfected their idea yet. They weren’t yet ready to share what they needed to say to and about Happy. 

They didn’t know that while they saw it very differently and they missed the  _same_ realisation to complete their respective works. 

Hazel chased it blatantly and had put all her effort into capturing it, only to have it slip out of her fingers while she tried to hold on to it. She was too focused on keeping it to appreciate it while it was there.

Dodie backed away from it as a sense of self-preservation so she would not deeply feel the loss that it left behind in her soul once it left. She was too focused on what happened when it left to appreciate it while it was there.

~*~

As Hazel worked on her poem, she became almost angry with herself as she saw the metaphorical shelf stocked with all her awful feelings. She had gotten so good at capturing them. Made friends with them even, which was horrible as they were toxic to her. 

Why had she kept them? So she could torture herself?

No. This would simply not do. 

She needed Happy to knock down all those bottles and never let her hold onto the bad as tightly as she’d done before. But chasing Happy hadn’t done her any good in all the years previously. 

But there had to be another way. She knew the days where she didn’t reach for a bottle of awful feelings. She sat down at her desk; pen poised over the paper and made a note of those good days. 

What had made them so?

As she began writing, it became apparent to her. While she didn’t process Happy, it had still crept into her life. It was elusive and shy and very difficult to spot if you didn’t pay close attention but it was there nonetheless. 

She had not noticed when Happy had stopped by, despite chasing it for years, because Happy didn’t make a fuss. Happy appeared quietly and settled into her life briefly and so subtly that she did not even notice it. 

She found the things that made her happy. The gentle touches from her loved ones that she never realised radiated Happy. The life she’d made for herself had left a dash of Happy sprinkled all over it. 

She imagined that Happy was only valid in its pure form, but that is like chasing and reaching for the sun. You’ll never be able to touch it and hold it. 

But you do feel the rays of sunshine on your face and the warmth Happy provides despite being unable to claim it as yours.  

She smiled when she realised and thanked Happy. How could she have been so blind to it this whole time?

~*~

The next time Happy stopped by, Dodie flinched as always. She saw Happy linger in the doorway and smiled at her, seeking permission to enter her world. 

Happy looked so bright and wonderful, as always. It’s beautiful and precious and way back when she would have flung herself into its arms and let it consumes her. 

Letting go like that had always felt so good. She would have been floating on a cloud of happiness and all her normal worries and all the scary emotions would be held at bay.  

But then the cloud would evaporate and she’d fall, dangerously fast until she smacked her face against the cold, hard reality. 

Happy knew her well by now.

It acknowledged her fears but urged her not to be wary. It urged her not to waste their time together worrying about what would happen later. It would spoil their precious time together. 

She caved and let her feel it and it was everything she wanted. She momentarily forgot about the consequences of her decision but… eventually came the time to say goodbye.

Would you mind staying? She had asked for the first time while embracing the emotion rather than shouting it aimlessly at the fleeting touch. 

Happy couldn’t stay. She had known that. 

However, promises to see each other again were made. Happy promised her that this wasn’t the end. They would see each other again and they were life long friends no matter how much time they might spend apart.

She wanted to clasps her hands around Happy and refuse to let it go. She didn’t want to fall off the cloud and smack her face against the cold hard reality that Happy shielded her from. 

Happy reminded her that she would have to let go for it to be able to return. The version of Happy she would be able to clutch onto would never be the real thing. However, she could always count on it to return if she embraced it and let it go again when it was time.

She smiled when she realised and thanked Happy. How could she have been so wrong the whole time?

~*~

“What are you working on?” Dodie asked Hazel, who had walked out into the kitchen in the early morning carrying the district look of someone that stayed up too late. 

“My animated short ‘Happy.’,” Hazel answered and waved off a yawn. 

Working late was no stranger to either of the girls. They had ambition and drive and they wanted to make creative content. Perhaps this was one of the reasons they both had fallen so deeply into a pit looking for Happy. After all, it was often seen as a driving force. 

However, as both girls had come to realise the obsessed pursuit of happiness was not something to aspire to. 

“What was that melody I heard you practicing last night?” Hazel asked Dodie, who was currently sat strumming along on her ukulele mindlessly with her legs folded up under her.

“Dear Happy,” Dodie said. “It’s a song about happiness, well technically I suppose it’s a duet with happiness but that sounds a bit odd.”

“Not really,” Hazel commented and leaned against the counter with a hot beverage in her hand. “The poem I’ve written and the animation I have planned picture Happy as many things; the sun, the clouds, the waves, the touch of loved ones. It’s not odd to want an actual dialogue with your Happy.”

“I suppose,” Dodie said, warmed but the kind smile on her friend’s face. 

“Do you think it’s because our periods are synced up that our emotional connection to happiness seem to culminate around the same time?” Hazel asked. 

“Maybe,” Dodie said with a laugh. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we’re both physically and emotionally intertwined.”

Hazel was no longer chasing Happy relentlessly. Instead, she had finally started to pay attention to her good moments and how Happy had been in the background of every single one of them. She had not managed to capture it, bind it to her side but it had shown up in her life anyway and enriched it. 

Dodie was no longer afraid to let Happy near her. She had finally figured out that shying away from it and refusing to accept it when it came to her was what had cut the deep scars inside her. When she let it go gently, waving it goodbye like a friend, it promised to come back to her again. 

~*~

It felt like Hazel could finally fully breathe again after her new revelation about Happy. She didn’t hold her breath and plan her attack whenever Happy came near her anymore. 

All the notes she’d made for her animated short film came together beautifully while telling the story she didn’t even properly know before she began this project. 

She came to the realisation that despite having spent so much energy chasing Happy on some assumption that she did not have it already, her life  _was_  a Happy one. Sure, there’s sadness mixed in with it but upon close inspection the Happy times far outweighed any other. 

For a very long time, she had difficulty describing exactly what Happy was to her and what created her own unique Happy. She was sucked into the gleam and glam of it all and the notion that Happy had to be a bright burning thing next to you at all times. 

That’s not the case at all. Happiness is fleeting, which is also the reason it can never be caught. In fact, yelling and chasing after it will only scare it further away. 

But it will come if you sit still instead of run after it. It’ll come to you and yes, it’ll leave but… it will also come back again. It’ll repeat the cycle endlessly but you don’t get to control the when. 

You just have to go with it and appreciate it when it’s there. 

Instead of chasing after it, she sat still and watched it creep through the door when she least expected it. It slotted into place perfectly, inconspicuously, and she kept from reaching out and trying to touch it. 

She used to compare Happy to the waves sweeping up the shoreline and she hated how they’d be there only briefly. Now she doesn’t hate it anymore because she’s realised the waves comes back. Every single time. 

She had found her Happy, at long last. She couldn’t capture it but she could greet it when it came and simply enjoy it.

~*~

She listened to Happy and didn’t fight when she had to let it go. She was put down gentler from the cloud this time but it still felt cold and overwhelming to be without it. 

She began to doubt Happy’s promise to return when the time dragged on past what she’s comfortable. She saw flickers of Happy around the corners of her life but it didn’t come to truly stay with her again for a while. 

Eventually though, Happy did show up.

She’s smiling brightly and laughing with friends when it happened. Happy settled with her, calming her instantly. She didn’t fight it this time. 

She embraced Happy, even though she knew a farewell awaited them in the future. She had taken Happy’s words to heart. It seemed stupid to waste the time Happy was actually here worrying about the time it wouldn’t be. 

It’s like refusing to enjoy the sunshine because it might rain tomorrow. 

Rain will come eventually, in a day, a week or a month. But the sun will also come back again. Just like Happy does. 

She came to appreciate the times without Happy too, in some odd way and it surprised her because they used to absolutely terrify her. She knew she’d be able to get through those times and when she comes out on the other side, Happy will be there waiting for her. 

Happy will walk beside her in her life always, even the times when it’s invisible. 

She made the most of her time with Happy and the separation didn’t hurt so much anymore. 

She couldn’t imagine why she used to prefer a life with Happy at an arm’s length distance. It was such a sad life. By riding out the highs, the drop down will feel scarier but it’s also what makes you feel alive. 

If you’re not experiencing the ups and downs, you’re not experiencing all life has to offer. You have to go through the bad to get to the good stuff. 

She embraced her Happy, at last. She learnt to appreciate Happy when it’s with her let it go when it time, knowing that it’ll be back again. 

~*~

 _Story time…_ Happy didn’t want to see the two lovely and creative girls in the messy London flat go through self-doubt and misery but he watches on silently. He had to let them figure it out for themselves and now it seems they finally have. He visits them as often as he’s able. 

Happiness can’t be captured or bottled. However, it will come back to you always, even after your darkest moments. So just try to get through. Be ready to be held in a loving embrace when it comes back for you.  **It will come back.**

**Author's Note:**

> This was such an emotional experience to write. Both of their videos and their carefully considered words really resonated with me. Additionally, Hazel's animation is incredible and Dodie and Thomas' voices are incredible. 
> 
> It's more angst than I normally write because I'm so damn sensitive and really like writing fluffy stuff. I think it's important to acknowledge topics like this. It still ended in quite a bit of fluff though. 
> 
> Find more of my stories under my profile or at https://www.wattpad.com/SecretNRB & http://secretlywritingstories.tumblr.com
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. As always, feedback is highly appreciated. Come talk to me @natigail on Tumblr or use the comment section below.


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